Month: June 2012

June 27, 2012

People come from all over the world to dive with the sharks in the south pass (the cut through the atoll where you can enter the huge lagoon).  You ride the incoming tide and drift over coral, fish and lots of sharks.  Our pictures of the sharks are a little lacking as these are screen shots of videos we took.  For some reason, we were a little preoccupied with the sharks and forgot to take some still pictures.  I can’t imagine why?

Those aren’t coi.  Those are about five foot long black tip reef sharks.  There were often thirty to fifty in view at a time.

While Cyndi didn’t panic, she was noticeably happier when the sharks weren’t around (which was seldom here).

June 26 – 29, 2012

We are calling this the Charlie’s Charts anchorage because it is the one that a very popular cruising guide book talks about.  It’s a very beautiful bay – not as breathtaking as the west anchorage, but there’s a lot to do as you’ll see in some of the next posts.

Sunrises are beautiful here.  I never thought I’d enjoy being up early this much!

And so you’ll get a lot of sunrise pictures…

And one of these days, we’ll try to get you a sunset picture or two as well.

June 26, 2012

I’ve had very little to do with my hair so far.  I leave it alone, it leaves me alone.  I haven’t used a comb or a brush even once since we left California (thanks Nikki for the great haircut).  The beard got to be a problem though as I was getting quite a bit of mustache with my pizza and no diving mask would seal to that hairy face.  It must be trimmed!

But how do I trim it without covering the boat in hair?  Answer: go to a little private motu (tiny island) in the south end of Fakarava, take my beard trimmer and a mirror, and hack away.  The problem was that the battery seems to have gone bad in my trimmer and it only made it half way through the job.  That wasn’t a pretty site.  I finished the job after a quick recharge back at the boat, sitting in the dingy.  The most mundane things can become quite a challenge out here.  I know, I know, you wish you had my problems! -Rich

June 25 – 26, 2012

We really loved this anchorage.  We had so many pictures we wanted to share and we just couldn’t bring ourselves to edit it down to a reasonable number, so they are in the gallery below.  You can click on any image and see a larger version and click on Next Image to scroll through them.

We had our own private motus here (a motu is a little island) with crystal-clear lagoons to swim in.  Cyndi said that two places so far on this trip have taken her breath away.  Bay of Virgins in Fatu Hiva and now this.–Rich

June 25 – 26, 2012

This is the view of and from the boat at anchor.

And this is what’s right under our boat.  It is taking some getting used to to determine if we’ll clear the rocks and coral under the boat.  Our keel sticks down about seven feet below the surface.  We had about two feet between this coral and the bottom of our keel.